Jeremey Sickenberger

A Muddy Creek Township man once again is seeking to overturn his murder conviction.

In 2016, a Butler County Common Pleas Court jury found Jeremey Sickenberger guilty of third-degree murder after a two-day trial.

The jury found that Sickenberger had killed Thomas “T.J.” Stockman, who died April 17, 2014, after Sickenberger shot him in the side of the chest with a .22-caliber rifle in the living room of Sickenberger's mobile home on Robbie Way. He was sentenced to 18 to 40 years in prison by Judge William Shaffer.

But Sickenberger's lawyer, Marco Attisano, is arguing that the jury couldn't have made a fair conclusion because it did not know his client had autism, which affects the way he processes and displays his emotions.

Shaffer, as the presiding judge, on Tuesday permitted Attisano's request to hire a psychologist to evaluate Sickenberger's autism. Attisano told Shaffer that he expected the evaluation to be completed by the beginning of February. Once the evaluation is complete, arguments will be made about the rest of Attisano's appeal, including his request to overturn Sickenberger's conviction and for a retrial. Sickenberger was present for the hearing through video.

Shaffer previously rejected similar arguments made by Attisano in 2017 during a hearing for a request for a new trial.

In Attisano's post-conviction relief filing, he argues that Sickenberger's lawyer at the time of trial was ineffective for not raising certain issues related to Sickenberger's autism.

Attisano's arguments surrounding Sickenberger's conviction rely on evidence presented at Sickenberger's sentencing that he was diagnosed with a form of autism. Attisano argued that the diagnosis wasn't presented to the jury during trial by public defender Joe Smith.

“The gist of this is there was no doctor with expertise to evaluate him before the trial, and the jury deserved to know he was on the spectrum ... ,” Attisano said after Tuesday's hearing. “So they see this guy not showing any emotion, and they wonder what's with this guy. The reality is he doesn't possess the ability to show emotion the same way you or I would.”

Attisano argued in his most recent filing that Smith “failed to adequately investigate whether (Sickenberger) suffered from autism, such evidence could have been used at trial to rebut the (prosecutor's) claims of malice required for third-degree murder.”

Sickenberger's account of the events leading up to Stockman's death has changed multiple times, according to earlier reports in the Butler Eagle, but a state police investigation determined that Sickenberger and the victim were “horsing around” while watching a movie that night. Sickenberger retrieved a .22-caliber rifle from his room, came back to the living room, put the barrel of the gun to the side of Stockman's chest and pulled the trigger.

Sickenberger has claimed that the shooting was accidental, that he did not know the gun was loaded and that he cannot remember if he pulled the trigger.

And in Attisano's filing, he notes that prosecutors during the trial argued that Sickenberger's reticence after the murder showed a lack of remorse and was evidence of malice.